


Cookie Crumbs

by chronicAngel



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Birthday, Cookies, Gen, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 13:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: He picks up the cookie, brushing the crumbs away from the tablecloth (it looks antique, probably one that used to belong to Bruce’s great-great-grandfather or something obnoxious and heirloom-y like that). "I guess I should get going then. Don’t want everybody to wake up and see me here and freak out that they didn’t get the chance to set everything up."





	Cookie Crumbs

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to two of my favorite guys in DC, Alfred Pennyworth ( _Injustice Gods Among Us: Year Five_ #26) and Jason Todd ( _Detective Comics_ #790)!

He wipes at the blood dripping from his nose and considers knocking. It’s been so long since he’s done anything like this that he doesn’t remember the proper etiquette. Should he just walk in? Is he still allowed to do that, after everything?

He shakes his head, sniffing despite the coppery taste it leaves on his tongue, and then turns to leave. He shouldn’t be here. They’re not ready to see him yet, which he understands and he’s okay with, because frankly he’s not ready either and he doesn’t know what he was thinking and--

The door opens with that creaking squeak that only the doors of houses built in 1837 make.

"Master Jason," Alfred greets, sounding completely unsurprised to see him, and Jason is suddenly acutely aware that it is five in the morning. It’ll be in the middle of Bruce’s three hours of sleep, then. Tim might not be asleep at all. He thinks again that he should leave. Now that he’s face-to-face with Alfred, though, he can’t exactly turn and run away into the night. Again. "Come in," Alfred says warmly, and now he has to.

He follows Alfred to the kitchen, and when he sees the cookies on a plate on the table he wonders if the old man wasn’t expecting him. When he looks around to make sure there is no one else around and confirms that the room is empty, he tentatively picks one up and bites into it. It is not warm anymore, but it still seems to melt in his mouth. The batch was probably made an hour ago, before his fight and when he first considered coming. Not for the first time since Bruce adopted him all those years ago, he wonders if Alfred isn’t psychic.

The butler is pressing buttons on Bruce’s coffee machine (which Jason has never been able to figure out but will die again before admitting that), and then it starts gently whirring and he’s pretty sure that means it will produce sweet caffeine juice soon. _Maybe I spend too much time with Timbo_ , he thinks even though he spends virtually no time with Tim. Alfred takes a seat at the table next to him and Jason can see the exact moment he spots the bloody nose. He guiltily puts the cookie down on the table. "Don’t worry about it. ‘S nothing, really." He wipes at the blood again. It’s calmed down a lot since he was on the doorstep, really. Alfred gives him The Look. "It’s not broken," he tries to reassure.

"I’m quite sure it isn’t, else I would have noticed it earlier. Come here. Let me see." Jason rolls his eyes but scoots closer anyway, more than a little guilty. He’s familiar with the doting grandfather routine by now. He’s happy to sit patiently while Alfred double checks that everything is fine with him just like his Robin days, as short-lived as those were. There’s a part of him that’s pretty sure if they’d brought Alfred to Qurac then everything would have turned out fine. He’s pretty sure that part of him is the childish 15-year-old who didn’t get to grow up that lingers in the back of his head.

He flinches as Alfred presses the side of his nose. "Ow, fuck!"

"Language, Master Jason," Alfred scolds, but he pulls his hand back anyway. "There seems to be no major damage. The swelling will go down in a couple of days, assuming you don’t get punched in the nose again. Of course, knowing you, who knows."

Jason scoffs. "Oh come on. Bruce says you’ve broken your nose twice." Alfred doesn’t need to say the _I was in the military for more than twenty years_ out loud for Jason to hear it. He sticks his tongue out at the old man when he turns his back to get an ice pack from the fridge. Jason appreciates the change from the bag of frozen peas that probably expired a year ago that he keeps in his apartment.

They sit in near silence for a while, the only sound that fills the room belonging to the cappuccino machine in the corner. Jason stares longingly at the half-eaten cookie on the table, which he can’t maneuver into his mouth around the ice pack, and is thankful that the manor doesn’t have ants even during the tail end of summer. His apartment is crawling with them, and he doesn’t have the energy to kill them unless a stray crawls on him on a bad day. Dick would say he’s depressed. Tim would say that he may or may not be depressed, but he displays a lot of the symptoms for PTSD. Bruce would hear this and worry and nag and offer to pay for therapy. He thinks Alfred would just come over and they’d have a cleaning day and maybe at the end of it they’d bake cookies together. There’s a reason the butler has always been his favorite.

"Master Bruce and the others are throwing a party for you this afternoon," Alfred says eventually, breaking the silence. "He got neapolitan ice cream. It was your favorite when you were fifteen. We weren’t certain if it had changed. I believe Miss Brown tried to text you."

"I know that. I’m even considering showing up," he jokes, because answering that his favorite ice cream is actually double fudge brownie now when they’re all trying so hard feels insincere for some reason. A year ago he would have corrected them and then grumbled that they’d know that if they weren’t so busy learning everything about his replacement, and then he would have glared at Tim until he eventually snapped and stormed out. _Maybe character development is real_ , he thinks. "If Dick tries to give a speech and gets all teary-eyed, though, I’m jumping out the nearest window."

They both laugh. "I don’t believe Master Dick has anything prepared. I can’t make the same promise for Master Bruce, though," Alfred says warmly. Privately, Jason supposes he can make an exception on his _jump out the window when confronted with emotional talks_ rule just this once. After all, giving an emotional speech on your son’s birthday is a normal dad thing to do. He thinks. He doesn’t have much experience in the area, really. "Miss Cassandra will be there," Alfred adds after a moment, trying to play it like an innocent, casual comment and not some sort of bribe in the form of his sister. "Her plane is supposed to be landing from Hong Kong at ten. Miss Brown will be picking her up."

He’s sure he’s smiling dumbly. "Is _that_ why she wasn’t on patrol tonight? Can’t drive on no sleep with precious cargo and all that." He picks up the cookie, brushing the crumbs away from the tablecloth (it looks antique, probably one that used to belong to Bruce’s great-great-grandfather or something obnoxious and heirloom-y like that). "I guess I should get going then. Don’t want everybody to wake up and see me here and freak out that they didn’t get the chance to set everything up."

Alfred smiles knowingly at him. "Happy birthday, Master Jason."

He pauses at the door, hand on the knob. "You too," he says. He wonders if he’s the only one who remembers Alfred’s in the wake of his own. He supposes he’ll find out later.


End file.
